flight jacket? >> absolutely. >> you would? >> i'm saying to the troops on this carrier and elsewhere, thanks for serving america. absolutely. >> reporter: senator kerry today noticed since that speech, more than 900 soldiers have died in iraq. >> so that was this date in the campaign in 2004. this date in the campaign in 2008, even though we were right in the middle of the meltdown of the financial sector, still at the center of the campaign in 2008, at the first debate between john mccain and barack obama, which was this date four years ago, the focus was the war. in fact, both wars. >> do you, senator mccain, much has been said about the lessons of vietnam. what do you see as the lessons of iraq? >> i think the lessons of iraq are very clear that you cannot have a failed strategy. thanks to this great general david pa tray yous, they are succeeding and winning in iraq. >> whether we should have gone into the war in the first place. six years ago i stood up and

opposed this war. we hadn't finished the job in afghanistan. we hadn't caught bin laden. we hadn't put al qaeda to rest. and as a consequence, i thought that it was going to be a distraction. now, senator mccain and president bush had a very different judgment. >> so that was this date, 40 days out from the election in '08 and 40 days out from the election in '04. in '04 the campaign was consumed with the debate over at least one of our wars. 40 days out from the election in '08, in the midst of the financial meltdown the campaign was consumed with both of the wars. now it's 2012 and we're 40 days out from the election this year and we are not quite as consumed with that issue, but we are still in one of those wars. and not being consumed with that issue turns out is not a mutual decision by the two candidates. i mean, the democratic side, president obama, talks about the war in iraq that he ended and the war in afghanistan he is still waging all the time. he brings it up all the time.

it is his republican opponent, mr. romney, who has generally done his best to avoid the subject altogether. i have to say, credit where credit's due. today while he still did not go there directly, at least, at last, finally, today mitt romney got close to the subject. >> we have huge numbers of our men and women that are returning from conflict that are seeking counseling, psychological counseling, and can't find that counseling within our system. and, of course, record numbers of suicides. this is a crisis. >> that was mitt romney speaking today in springfield, virginia, to the american legion. and, no, he is still not apparently able to say anything about the war directly, but at least today where you saw him there, he did mention that this war has produced an outcome of war. which is american war veterans. neither the war nor its veterans were mentioned, of course, in mr. romney's speech to the nation upon becoming his party's nominee for president. he's trying to fix the veterans part of that oversight. he really as a candidate still seems incapable of talking about the war he would be taking over as commander in chief.

there were these dueling appearances in virginia before military heavy audiences in that military heavy state. president obama talking about ending the war in iraq, talking about his strategy in afghanistan. president obama released a two minute tv ad today. sort of his closing argument for his campaign. in the two-minute ad he talks about what the country should do with the savings that we will obtain when we eventually end the war in afghanistan. but while mr. romney did mention veterans in his virginia speech today, he did not say what he would do to improve the problem that he identified for veterans. in fact, the way he talked about it indicated he might not know even which part of the government is supposed to fix a problem like that. and he still can't bring himself to talk about what he would do as commander in chief. he still can't bring himself to talk about the war that we are still in that is now producing new veterans every day and is due to keep doing that for another couple of years.

in any other election year, with any other candidate who was more capable of holding his own on this issue, we would be having a debate on this issue. we would be having a big national debate on this subject right now. because it very obviously needs debating. "wired" magazine today published this internal assessment from the u.s. military in afghanistan. and it shows sort of inadvertently what the effect has been of the big obama troop surge in the war. in 2009, after he was inaugurated, and there was a summertime surge of violence and attacks in afghanistan, president obama took several months in 2009 to do an intensive review of american strategy in the war. you'll remember that he announced that the end of that review, at the end of 2009 in december, that he was going to send tens of thousands more american troops into afghanistan. the idea, they said, was to blunt the taliban's momentum. so here's the data he was looking at in terms of what the taliban's momentum was when he made his decision to send the

surge. what you're looking at there on the left is the calendar year. it's what the military in afghanistan calls enemy initiated attacks. all the years of all fights in afghanistan all have that general sort of pattern where it peaks in the summer and drops in the winter. that's what they call the fighting season in afghanistan. looking at that, see what the overall level was. that was the first calendar year president obama was president. after looking at those numbers he decided to do the surge. that's the level of violence he was looking at when he sent more troops at the end of that year. now, three years later after the surge has ended, this is the level of attacks in this calendar year in 2012. so over 2010 and 2010 during the surge, right, we endured this level of enemy-initiated -- that's during the surge. we endured that level of enemy-initiated attacks. now after the surge, after all of that blood and treasure and sacrifice, we have a new level which is higher than when we

started. so that's for enemy-initiated attacks. here's the same number for executed ied attacks. so bombs in afghanistan, right? here was the rather outrageously high numbers of bombs in afghanistan in 2009 when president obama was making his decision about the surge. these are ieds. here's the level now. here's what we went through during the surge years. the interim years. that's 2010 and 2011. so, you know, it's possible to spin this as, oh, look, 2012 is slightly better than last year, looks like it might be, right? that wasn't the point. the idea was that it was supposed to get better than when we started the surge. this deadline that the president set for leaving at the end of 2014 was prefaced on the idea that the surge would have created some better environment from which it would make sense we could leave because things would be better. if that promise is wrong and things after the surge are worse than before the surge, if things are not going to get better by the time we are set to leave, then why are we sticking with that as still being the time to leave? when the pentagon announced the end of the surge last week, when

they announced the surge was over, they talked less about blunting taliban momentum and more about how the surge helped us train lots of afghan security forces. in theory, lots of trained afghan security forces is a way afghanistan could get more safe. but right now it's also a way americans get killed. by the afghans we are training and arming. afghan troops are turning around and killing american troops they're supposed to be working with at such a rate now that the training and joint operations between the two forces were halted this month. and have only now started to scale back up. that's the circumstances in which 68,000 americans are putting their lives on the line right now while you watch this tv show. 68,000. there is a debate to have here about what we are doing in afghanistan. things are worse after the surge than they were before the surge. what was the surge for? why does the deadline for leaving stay the same if the surge was supposed to make things better and it didn't? if the republicans had picked a candidate who was capable of engaging in this debate, we would be having this debate as a country. we did it in the last two elections when we were at war. we're still at war but we apparently can't do it in this

election because mitt romney has nothing to say on this. it's not a debate. it's one guy talking and nobody answering. other republicans below the presidential candidate level are willing to have this debate. this is from "the tampa bay times." "over and over, every time the subject of pulling troops out of afghanistan, republican congressman bill young has voted to stay the course. he opposed resolutions to withdraw and even a resolution to set a timetable for withdrawal. but not anymore." "i think we should remove ourself from afghanistan as quickly as we can," says congressman young. "i just think we're killing kids that don't need to die." this is the longest serving republican member of congress. he chairs the subcommittee that funds the pentagon in the house. he describes himself as a stay the course politician, since the days of the vietnam war. but he now says he is done. he is over it. and you know what? he's not alone. most americans are done. we are over it. more than two-thirds of the

country says the u.s. should not be involved in afghanistan anymore and that is not a partisan figure. when you're looking at 69%, that's too high to be a partisan figure if nothing else. there's a political debate to have here between two responsible, competing ideas for what to do in the longest war in american history that's already in year 11 and that is not slated to end this year and that is not slated to end next year and that is not slated to end until the end of the year of that. that, right now, is the democratic party's position as embodied by the democratic president. does the republican party have a competing idea? nobody knows. >> it's six weeks before this election and we still don't really know what governor romney wants to do as president. that should make you worry. >> senator jim webb, former navy secretary, a vietnam war veteran, spoke with president obama today in virginia beach. and he went right at mr. romney on foreign policy and the wars. and he is -- he's right there when he says that we don't know what mr. romney would do if he

became president. mr. romney has said recently and vaguely that he supports what president obama is doing in afghanistan in terms of there being a timeline for leaving but he has also said he was against a timeline for leaving in the past. so really who knows? he's not even trying. the closest we've gotten to any competing cogent republican position on the war is probably what we got from senator john mccain at the republican convention when he said that the afghanistan war just shouldn't end. he also thinks that the iraq war shouldn't have ended. so i'm not sure that it's a politically viable position. even if it is an internally cogent one from the senator. for this year's nominee, it's apparently just not going to happen. not unless he starts it now. 40 days out, mitt romney did get as close as he gets to talking about the issue today. in that he spoke before a group of veterans and talked about a concern about veterans. even if he didn't say what he wanted to do about that concern. mr. romney, in fact, implied

that the sequester that might result in defense cuts that his running mate paul ryan voted for, he implied that would hurt suicide prevention programs for veterans even though the v.a. would be exempt from that, so i'm not sure he even understood what it was he was talking about. but at least he tried. at least veterans got a mention from him. even if it didn't make sense in policy terms. you do know that defense and veterans are two different -- at some point it should be possible with 40 days left to say veterans have to be more than just an applause line. right? you don't just get to use them for a photo op like the decommissioned battleship you used as a backdrop when you introduced paul ryan inexplicably in front of a battleship, another time when you didn't mention the war. even if you're not willing to talk about the war we are in that you would be taking over, veterans are not a hypothetical construct. the way they're treated is not

an esoteric consequence of how we feel about them as a nation or how much military spending we have which is how mitt romney described it today. 40 days out from the election with the israeli prime minister drawing an actual redline on a wiley coyote acme style bomb at the united nations today when talking about iran. 40 days out with the surge in afghanistan looking like it did the opposite of what it was supposed to do, 40 days out with "the new york times" reporting that the romney campaign's big national security legal idea is to have president romney rescind the ban on torture on his first day in office. that's their big idea. that will help. 40 days out from the election, there has to be a way to build on this one small thing this republican campaign for the presidency seems capable of handling when it comes to national security matters. if not for the country, if not for the candidate, then for the country we should try to be optimistic about this, right? mitt romney showed today he is capable, at least, of mentioning veterans and how veterans get treated even if he doesn't totally understand the issue. let's start there.

the fact he can handle that much, we can at least take as a starting point. i mean, in previous campaigns, yeah, we've been able to have debates about the wars. this year the republican not capable of handling that. maybe he can handle this. here's a simple idea. an american soldier gets killed in the war. that soldier's family gets a payment. dependency and indemnity compensation for surviving spouses and children. we're sorry your husband, your father, your wife was killed. from the u.s. government. you think this would be one of the less partisan inflected things we do as a country, right? the payment we make to surviving spouses and children. from time to time, that payment gets adjusted to reflect increases in the cost of living. right? that makes sense. one of the least controversial things you could possibly imagine the united states government agreeing to. well, a bill to adjust that payment for the cost of living was brought to the senate floor last thursday. it was expected to go ahead. no muss, no fuss, who's going to

argue with that? it was blocked by someone in governor romney's party. an unnamed republican senator has put a hold on the cost of living adjustment to the surviving spouses and children's payment for soldiers killed in the war. the same hold is also affecting the disability payments to soldiers who are wounded in the war. some republican senator is blocking this. we don't know who. governor romney, here's a place to start. you are now the leader of the republican party. i realize you're having a hard time getting the training wheels off when it comes to national security, but here's an easy one. should that senator from your own party lift that hold on the cost of living adjustment to the payments to those people who we sort of owe it to? should a republican senator who's holding this up keep that hold in place or drop it? you're the leader of that party. do you have anything to say on this? here's another one. veterans jobs corps bill we

talked about last week on this bill, a bipartisan bill, iraq and afghanistan veterans have an unemployment rate 35% higher than the rest of the country now. this bill comes to the senate floor and is blocked by republican senators. governor romney, you are now the leader of the republican party. you're willing to talk about veterans even when you can't bring yourself to talk about the war and even when you plainly don't understand the issue you're discussing. still, this is kind of an easy one. you could take a position on the veterans jobs bill. do you think the senators from your own party should stop blocking the veterans job corps bill? one of the million times that you relaunched yourself since you started losing so badly after the conventions, you said the way you were going to relaunch is start getting specific. let's get specific. you won't get specific on the war. you're obviously willing to mention veterans to get applause. why don't we start there? whether or not it helps you, it would be great for the country. we are 40 days out. hope springs eternal. maybe this campaign can yet live up to what our politics are supposed to be. and what on the issue of the wars they have always previously been before you became one of

the nominees and couldn't handle it. our politics are supposed to be a way to solve problems. we've got problems. do you have anything to say about how to fix them? he news starts with arthritis pain and a choice. take tylenol or take aleve, the #1 recommended pain reliever by orthopedic doctors. just two aleve can keep pain away all day. back to the news. just two aleve can keep pain away all day. mr. margin? mr. mar. don't be modest, bob. you found a better way to pack a bowling ball. that was ups. and who called ups? you did, bob. i just asked a question. it takes a long time to pack a bowling ball. the last guy pitched more ball packers. but you... you consulted ups. you found a better way. that's logistics. that's margin. find out what else ups knows. i'll do that. you're on a roll. that's funny. i wasn't being funny, bob. i know. ♪ something to me ♪ that nobody else could do

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let's invest in our teachers... ...so they can inspire our students. let's solve this. how did i get here? dumb luck? or good decisions? ones i've made. ones we've all made. about marriage. children. money. about tomorrow. here's to good decisions. who matters most to you says the most about you. massmutual is owned by our policyholders so they matter most to us. massmutual. we'll help you get there. four years ago i said i'd end the war in iraq and we did. i said we'd wind down the war in afghanistan in a responsible way, and we are. you've got a new tower across

the new york skyline. al qaeda's on the path to defeat. bin laden is dead. >> i happen to subscribe to ronald reagan's maxim that peace comes through strength. i want to have a military that's so strong no one wants to test it. you see, you want to -- >> president obama and mitt romney both making their case to veterans in virginia today. the president talking about ending our trillion-dollar wars, at least eventually, and his opponent talking about ronald reagan. joining us now, john stanton, washington bureau chief at "buzz feed" and it's been way too long since we've had you on show. congratulations on your move,vy way, how is "buzz feed"? >> it's awe? >> one of the things you did around the convention is you greyhound bused down there, and sort of went out of your way to talk to regular on the street folks who were not necessarily getting, having their opinions plundered by pundits. when you're doing sort of "man

on the street" talking to people about politics, do people ever talk about the wars? >> they do. talking, particularly, i was in savannah and talking to church people that were feeding the working poor and homeless people. there were a lot of veterans there. some of the people i talked to on the bus were veterans. they feel like their plight as the working poor in this country, no one is really talking about the wars anymore. president obama talks about it, sort of generally, his accomplishments, but he doesn't talk about so much going forward and what's going to happen. i think a lot of people have become fatigued with it. even these people, some of them have gone through it, or their families have gone through it, even they're sort of tired of deal with it almost. they want it to go away. >> the going forward part of it is the part i'm really hung up on. looking at those surge numbers today, i'm not sure if our graphs totally showed it the way we laid those out. the violence the president was looking at in '09 when he surged the troops, it's worse now. we spent a lot of blood and time and lives to get to a situation

that's worse. the idea was it would get better and that's how we would tail out and live. it's hard to imagine that that policy isn't a matter of debate. do you feel like not only talking to voters, looking at the campaign, in the next 40 days, does it get there? >> neither campaign wants to talk about it. mitt romney is doing barack obama a bit of a favor by not engaging him on this thing. romney has difficulties but doesn't have any real experience, himself. paul ryan is a domestic guy. he doesn't do a lot of foreign policy stuff. by not talking about it, it lets obama off the hook a little bit because there is this problem of what happens next after the surge is over? you know, what happens with pulling out the troops? do we pull them out earlier like bill young is talking about? or do we keep them in longer in that debate is not happening. you know, i don't think either candidate, frankly, probably had

a particularly good answer for that. and i think that's sort of why we're seeing neither one of them really engaging hard on what's going to happen next in the war. >> the president is talking about the new tower on the new york skyline. that tower is not done. talking about savings from ending the war in afghanistan. that war doesn't end until the end of 2014. anybody running against somebody who's taking those positions provided they had the slightest bit of confidence in our own position, it seems like a place to go. but i wonder if you see the romney campaign potentially bringing somebody else on who can handle it? any sort of heavyweight surrogates who can handle it? >> they could have brought in condi rice, brought in former generals, people from the bush administration who were not neocons. >> second-term folks. >> they haven't done that yet which is surprising. when they went to the domestic focus on the vice president, they needed to sort of bring somebody in. that is what joe biden did for obama in '08.

that was the counter to john mccain. and they haven't done that. and i -- it's going to be difficult for them to do that in the next couple weeks. and going into that last debate where they're going to be talking about this stuff, this is going be an issue, they're going to need to frame that up before they get there or it's going to be difficult for them to have much of a debate among, no, i'm better, i'm worse. >> i feel like we're in an unsustainable spot. these issues are being forced into discussion even if they can't be forced into the politics. i feel like reckoning is coming on this in political terms. john stanton, "buzz feed's" d.c. bureau chief. you do great work. >> pleasure to be here. all right. are you a college student? do you know any college students? do you have any sense of how college students will vote this year if they vote? a bunch of political vigilantes who know how college students are likely to vote this year have figured out how to stop students from doing it. it is a very simple strategy and it is very stupid, and that's next. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 let's talk about low-cost investing.

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i waited, i voted. that's all that matters. >> at college, this was not your ordinary all nighter. >> i'm willing to wait as long as it takes for me to vote. >> reporter: hours after the polls were scheduled to close in ohio -- >> i've been here since 4:30. >> reporter: hundreds of student, professors and neighbors were still stuck in line, some here for more than ten hours. >> i'm not going to leave. i'm just going to make sure that every vote counts. >> reporter: why the wait? for 1,300 voters here, just 2

ballot booths available. >> people were voting about 40 per hour, so you do the math. >> in the '04 election, republican president george w. bush won the crucial state of ohio with 50.8% of the vote. and he won a second term in office. in certain parts of ohio, for certain groups of people who tend to lean democratic, voting in that election that year meant waiting if lines for ten hours or more. for voters in mostly african-american precincts voting was like an endurance event. in precincts used by college students, voting was an all day and into the night affair. the polls simply were not set up to accommodate everyone who wanted to vote. particularly democratic leaning constituencies. this time around, the national race, again, may all but depend on ohio and the same key democratic constituencies are again finding that trying to vote is a challenge. and i use the word challenge on purpose. as we reported earlier this month, the tea party group in

ohio called the voter integrity project claims to have found 730,000 suspect names that it wants purged off the voter rolls in ohio. 730,000. we've now started to get a better sense of who this tea party group is challenging in terms of their registration and their right to vote. look at this. "the names selected for purging include hundreds of college students, trailer park residents, homeless people, and african-americans in counties president obama won in 2008." "the l.a. times" reporting today the tea party reporter vigilantes are hone in on college students in particular. the ohio voter integrity project challenged the voting rights of college students at ohio state and oberlin, kent state, and on and on and on and on. you have to give your name and state some kind of reason why you think the person you're challenging shouldn't be allowed to vote. you have to fill in this form, sign it under penalty of election falsification. you give the reason, you sign the form, you turn it in. so what's the reason this self-appointed tea party group is giving for challenging the voting rights of all of these

students at all these ohio colleges? well, "the l.a. times" reports the reason is, "failure to specify dorm room numbers." dorm room numbers? yes, it's legal to register to vote at your college if you live there, that's where you live. that's where you get to vote. students register to vote using their dorm addresses and this tea party vigilante group is trying to get the students thrown off the rolls and banned from voting for listing their dorm but not their dorm room number. the silver lining here? "so far, every county election board that has reviewed the dorm room challenges found them invalid." every single one of those college kids ran the risk of being disenfranchised and every county worker who fielded that challenge got that much more diverted from the work of getting ready for the election and making sure it runs smoothly and making sure people aren't disenfranchised and making sure the lines aren't too long. we are less than 40 days out. we are out -- well, we are 40 days out. the people who want your vote are really, really busy right

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what are you waiting for? this is big news. begins with back pain and a choice. take advil, and maybe have to take up to four in a day. or take aleve, which can relieve pain all day with just two pills. good eye. the website realclearpolitics is one of the places that aggregates poll numbers and offers averages for

how specific races are going and specific states. based on those averages realclearpolitics changed its ranking of five different u.s. senate races. since the end of the democratic convention. prior to the convention, they listed these three states as leaning republican in senate races. they listed arizona and nevada and wisconsin as all leaning republican. well, now those are all moved into the tossup category. they no longer lean republican. now who knows. before the democratic convention, the two states that -- the two states they had considered tossups, too close to call, were ohio and michigan. well, now they have been shifted into the leans democratic category. so they've shifted five senate race since the conventions and all of the shifts have been toward the democrats. a political scientist named larry sabato at the university of virginia also promised probably the most famous individual person in the country who has long done this kind of ranking and characterizing of races. today in addition to moving five swing states in the direction of

president obama, mr. sabato moves others. three states moved in the republican direction. connecticut moved to tossup. montana moved to leans republican. maine moved from likely to leans democrat/independent. so three of the 11 senate races he moved moved in the republicans' direction. larry sabato moved eight senate races the other way toward the democrats. 8 of the 11 moved toward the democratic candidate. so 40 days yet to go, but that's a trend. and voting is already under way in most parts of the country. for people who are favored to win their race, must feel great right now, right? because it's sort of almost over. but for people who are favored to lose right now, they are potentially facing being cut loose by their donors. and that is happening to some people who you might not expect to be getting cut loose. that's next.

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here's a look at the state of the race in the swing states. here's the new polling data we got today. new suffolk university poll showing president obama in virginia up by two points. also brand new nbc/"wall street journal" marist polling on three other swing states showing president obama in nevada up by two. showing president obama in new hampshire up by seven.

and showing president obama in north carolina also up by two. because early voting has already started in a majority of swing states, and in a majority of states, period, it's not just a get excited cliche now to say election day is upon us. really, seriously. get excited. it's upon us. it's already started. you can tell it's already started is in part because we're in the triage period of the call pain. the time of the election year when people who are spending money in hopes of effecting the election's outcome start cutting their losses hedging their bets and use their money instead in places they think it will make a difference. "the hill" newspaper reporting this week the republican party's house campaign committee had not yet reserved any ad time for a handful of incumbent republican congressmen. a sign that, quote, congressmen in question -- canceled two weeks of its scheduled ad buy for a north carolina democratic incumbent seen as vulnerable. quote, a sign he thinks he's a

lost cause in the newly drawn heavily republican district. as this process starts to move forward, the emotion starts to ride high for the candidates getting cut off. this is the end of the campaign. if your funding is getting cut off, it could be the end of the line for your candidacy. people get touchy at political triage time. they freak out. sometimes the way the freak-out manifests is the reporting gets reversed. yesterday in "the hill's" reporting in start of the triage season, congressman joe walsh of illinois, among the incumbents being triaged out of funding by the republicans' house campaign committee given the latest polling shows him losing to tammy duckworth by 14 points didn't seem a surprising notion that the house campaign committee for the republicans might cut old joe walsh loose. i don't know what happened overnight, but this morning, new news on that. they're not cutting him loose at all. after yesterday's reporting that he was getting cut loose, today

the republican house campaign committee says they are reserving that time for joe walsh. political triage is interesting to watch. right? it shows you just how high the stakes are at this point in the campaign. but, of course, this year the money is not just coming from the candidates and the parties' campaign committees. this year a huge amount of the money being cycled into the campaign comes from superpacs and other outside groups, groups that presumably will be going some triaging of their own before long. right now the news from the dark money world is mostly just about how much of it there is. and there is a lot of it. on the democratic leaning side, the billionaire george soros announced today he's giving 1 million bucks to a superpac that supports president obama and a half million bucks to superpacs supporting democratic congressional candidates. on the republican leaning side, ad buys, in the final stretch of the campaign. see them on the screen. multimillion dollar ad buys in some states. in some states, they're buying ads in states that neighbor swing states. this ad made by the american future fund. see, they're buying time in minnesota, not necessarily

because minnesota is a swing state, but the media markets they're buying time in in minnesota they think overlap into wisconsin and parts of iowa. so it's a way to buy wisconsin and iowa on the cheap. they'll be buying time in minnesota, but they'll be seen in these swing state -- by the swing state voters in iowa and wisconsin, trying to get more bang for their advertising buck. bargain hunting makes sense if you're looking to get in on the 2012 campaign ad wars with this much time left. it also makes sense in terms of understanding how effective the dark money groups are going to be compared to the actual campaigns. the "washington post" is up with a piece this week on an underreported advantage that the obama side has over the romney side. romney's financial advantage is because of the massive amounts of cash being spent on his behalf by the republican party and by outside interest groups. he has more superpac money working for him. but president obama has more of

his own campaign money than the romney campaign has to spend. and it turns out not all money is created equal. campaign money, money you raise yourself for your campaign, is easily, more easily spent and sometimes more effectively spent than the superpac money. local tv stations, see, are required to give the campaigns, the real campaigns their best deals on advertising time. there's no such requirement in terms of the way they treat the superpacs. the "washington post" is reporting that in one ohio ad buy, set to run right before the election, the obama campaign is paying $125 for a tv spot. that spot is costing a conservative superpac $900. $125 versus $900 for the same spot? that's a huge markup for being a superpac. what that means effectively is mr. romney and his supporters may have fewer resources than it appears they have because things will cost more for them than they do for the obama campaign. when your campaign is so fueled by superpacs and outside money,

you get less bang for your buck than if you had more of your own money. being fueled by outside money carries a more ominous risk than the fact you're not going to have any bargains. you also have do cede control to the superpacs when it comes to triage. among other things. in terms of cutting their losses and hedging their bets and pulling their money out of unwinnable races, the superpacs have their own agendas, right? mitt romney campaign is never going to cut and run from mitt romney. but couldn't the superpacs at some point if the polls stay the way they are just decide mitt romney is running an unwinnable campaign, their money might be better spent in down-ballot campaigns? when the superpacs do their political triage there's an option to cut mitt romney loose. joining us now for "the interview," an evil dark money overlord named bill burton, a senior strategist for the pro-obama superpac, priorities usa action. bill, it's good to have you here. >> overlord is such a dirty word.

>> it sounds better than it looks. it looks nice. then you say it out loud. >> i don't think it looks nice, either. >> did i get the basic point right there about, about the money -- money outside the campaigns, money you've been raising and spending. it's at a disadvantage. you have to pay more for your ad time? >> the campaigns pay a much cheaper rate than the superpacs are able to pay. on the republican side, karl rove and the koch brothers have hundreds of millions of dollars so can put throwaway behind ads they're doing and can be up and have an impact. the truth is the campaigns are allowed to spend at a much cheaper value. >> i know that the legal distinction is that there's not supposed to be any coordination between pacs supporting a candidate. superpacs supporting a candidate and the candidates' campaign. here's the thing i don't understand. i understand that means you can't sit down with david axelrod and say, okay, we're all going to focus on bain.

can't you just go second? can't you wait to see what the obama campaign is doing and copy them and backstop them. >> this has been a big disadvantage for the republican side. i feel bad for our counterparts over there. if you watch the romney campaign, what do you think mitt romney's message and strategy is? there's a week in august where crossroads had an ad up about the debt. an ad up about jobs. americans for prosperity was advertising on solyndra. mitt romney was advertising on welfare reform. if you're on the superpac side trying to figure out what they're trying to get across, you have no idea. welfare reform, $10 million behind that? seriously? >> the romney campaign has had trouble stays on message, picking a message and sticking with it, which has been fun. if they could stick with it, couldn't they and couldn't you just choose to backstop whatever the campaign is doing, therefore colluding only in public by the virtue of the fact you were watching tv? >> right, you absolutely could. you know, the truth is, you know, there's an ark of a story that you try to tell. so on our side, you watch what

the obama campaign is doing. you watch what we're doing. there's an ark to mitt romney's story. he started in his business career as a guy who, you know, bought companies, fired workers, made millions of dollars. went to become the governor of massachusetts. didn't do a great job. and here's what we wants to do for the country. on the republican side, the story that they tell about mitt romney is there is no story about mitt romney. there's one ad about the olympics over the course of the summer. the story they tell about barack obama is, well, he's all these bad things. and so if you're trying to figure out, well, what is it that, what's the strategy here? that you were watching tv? >> right, you absolutely could. you knows the truth is there is an arc of a story that you try to tell. there is an art to the story. he's a guy who has bought companies, fired workers, didn't do a great job and here is what he wants to do to for the country. on the republican side, there is no story about mitt romney. and the story they tell about barack obama is well, he is all these bad things. if you are trying to figure out what is the strategy here? it is a lot more difficult on their side.

the spending has been erratic and they are probably not having as big of an impact. >> did you know that was the arc no matter what he did. did you have that mapped out? >> we started that in december of last year. if he was going to make his businessism experience the center argument. we also knew that the ryan budget was the most toxic thing that he was associated with. >> you thought you would be sticking him with the paul ryan budget before he picked paul ryan. >> i'm giving myself fridays off. >> not quite fridays off but it did make the job more straight forward. and george thorus pledged more money to you today. why did he do that today and why didn't he do that before and what is the consequence of that? >> the consequence is that -- >> does it bring other rich democrats who gave to him, does it bring them out of the woodwork? >> is this the moment where we need to get involve snd. >> we are getting into this period where you are at the last moment where big investments are voting in the race. iowa is voting today.

you can make investments in television add ver advertisements. i think a lot of democrats are feeling the election is here and even though mitt romney has not performed very well over the last two weeks, the president is barely knocking on 50% in the last two weeks. democrats are feeling the pressure and are concerned. >> when people are talking about giving maybe a seven figure donation, you were on the campaign side of it with normal donors years ago. are really rich people concerned about different things? you if were giving to the campaign or to the superpac. you were giving to the things that democrats feel strongly about. >> i hear you. real quick the master of spin. your evil lordship. bill burton. good to see you man. still ahead tonight the best new thing in the world. now with 92% more world global indignation. best new thing in the new york. the day the president of iran addressed the un. this year was more exciting than usual. by this time next year, he will not be iran's president anymore. this was kind of it. the reason everyone gets excited this time of year is mr.

ahmadinejad's speeches themselves, the reason we circle this week in red pen on the calendar every year, is not because of his offensive speeches, but the speck taable of everyone walking out on his speeches. they were packing up their papers and walking out why he was speaking. and it is more of that that we were looking forward to this good to see you man. still ahead tonight the best new thing in the world. now with 92% more world global indignation. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 let's talk about low-cost investing.

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by this time next year, he will not be iran's president anymore. this was kind of it. the reason everyone gets excited this time of year is mr. ahmadinejad's speeches themselves, the reason we circle this week in red pen on the calendar every year, is not because of his offensive speeches, but the speck taable of everyone walking out on his speeches. they were packing up their papers and walking out why he was speaking. and it is more of that that we were looking forward to this week. yeah, it is walk out on machmud week. until we saw this. u.s. delegation will not attend. how can you do this to us? you cannot walk out if you are not sitting there. here is what it looked like on tv during ahmadinejad's speech. it doesn't have the same flare of getting up and storming out while he talks.

the headlines this week said that canada's delegation walked out. but we scoured the video and we can never find the footage of the canadians leaving. so whether it was a walk out or a boycott, this week was not the usual fun for the moment of international theater we have all come to know and love. for those of you who look forward to it. we have a greatest hits. 2010 when first the united states started to go followed by britain, spain, the swedes and then 33 delegations walked out. even costa rica snubbed iran that year. in may 22 nations giving him the one finger salute while he kept talking. my favorite, it happened to take

them in front of his podium to the sound of much applause. he has another nine months in office. so glad. so maybe we will get to celebrate walk out on ahmadinejad day. but until then, i take great comfort in showing him what we think of him to his face.

i have to say there is the grave pleasure of seeing him leave town. and that is the greatest thing for the day. this is msnbc election coverage. this is night one of our 2012 election coverage since voting started today in iowa.